Police Blotter, Week of August 21, 2012

Teenage trouble
Police are looking for three teenagers who allegedly robbed two younger boys at knifepoint in a Tribeca park on Wed., Aug. 15.

The two victims, both 14, were eating lunch in St. John’s Park, at Varick and Laight Streets, when they were approached by the teens, who asked what they had in their pockets. When one of the unsuspecting 14-year-olds said that they didn’t have anything, the perps started punching him in the face. Then the three troublemakers spotted an iPod sticking out of the other boy’s pocket, and one of them grabbed it while saying, “If you don’t give it to us, I’ll use my knife.”

One of the perps yanked a $20 bill out of the first boy’s pocket while he was recovering from being punched.
All three toughs fled towards Sixth Avenue. The victims described the group of assailants as two Hispanics and one black, all approximately 16 years of age.

No Southern hospitality here
A visitor from North Carolina recently received a rude welcome to New York City, losing more than $5,000 worth of goods after her pricey purse was stolen. The woman, 30, was at the Greenhouse at 150 Varick St. on Tues., Aug. 14, when, at around 2:30 a.m., she left her bag unattended for a few minutes. When she returned to her table, the bag, a $1,000 Louis Vuitton, was gone, along with its contents — a Michael Kors wallet with both her credit and debit card, an iPhone 4S, Ray Ban sunglasses, a M.A.C. makeup kit, her birth certificate and $700 in cash. When the woman cancelled her stolen cards, she learned that unauthorized purchases had already been made — $76 on the debit card, and $2,000 on the credit card.

Assault by bottle
Police are looking for a supposed Tribeca street peddler who allegedly assaulted a Queens man on Sat., Aug. 18 by, breaking a bottle on his head.

The victim said the attack stemmed from a verbal disagreement he was having with the peddler, nicknamed Actar, near the corner of Canal Street and Broadway at around 4 p.m. that day. In the middle of the argument, the man said that Actar picked up a glass bottle and hit him on the side of the head with it.

The blow left the man with a cut and in severe pain. Police who spotted him in the street minutes later had him taken to New York Downtown Hospital, where he was treated for the injuries. By that time, Actar — whom the victim described as Asian, approximately 5’7’’ and 165 pounds — had fled the scene.

The dangers of Dozing
A man, 27, had his laptop stolen while he was sleeping on the subway during the wee hours of Fri., Aug. 17.

The man couldn’t keep his eyes open while riding the 4 train at around 3 a.m., but he probably couldn’t believe his eyes when he woke up at the Fulton Street stop. He had placed the laptop next to him after boarding the train, but during his brief slumber, it was plucked from the seat.

The good news, he told police, is that his MacBook Pro could be tracked by G.P.S. through a security device he had previously installed on it. The bad news is that the souped-up laptop, which he valued at $3,000, is still missing.

Security was too slow
A commercial van driver found himself the victim of vehicular burglary after he parked on the third floor of the Battery Parking Garage, at 70 Greenwich St., on Sat., Aug. 18 at around 7 a.m.

A security guard assigned to the parking lot told police that he had checked the third floor at 10:50 a.m. and considered it clear of any threats. But when he made his rounds again ten minutes later, the front passenger window of the van was smashed in.

When the driver, an employee of the New Jersey-based company, Layout, Inc., returned, he realized that a pair of Motorola two-way radios, a calculator and a two-gigabyte flash drive had been lifted from the front seat.

Stumbling, fumbling thief
A woman, 40, was walking past the corner of Grand and Wooster Streets at around 3 p.m. on Thurs., Aug. 16, when a man snuck up behind her and grabbed the wallet sticking out of her open handbag. He took off running, but his luck turned sour when he tripped and fell to the pavement, dropping the wallet behind him. The thief fled empty-handed, allowing the woman to recover her property.

She described the wallet snatcher to police as black and approximately 20 years old, 5’5’’ and 130 pounds, with a blotchy complexion.

Breaking and entering
An employee of the Spring Nail Spa N.Y. in the Financial District arrived at her business the morning of Thurs., Aug. 16, to find that it had been broken into and burglarized.

The front glass of the building, at 119 Fulton St., had been smashed the previous night, and the employee said that whoever did it also broke into the cash register and walked away with $300. There were no witnesses, and police couldn’t lift any fingerprints from the scene of the crime. The next move would have been to check the nail spa’s security cameras for footage, but there was no video according to the employee.